BS Yeddyurappa

Bangalore, June 13: Enemy then, muse now.

A Karnataka minister who once led a rebellion against chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa plans to produce a movie on the life and times of the head of the BJP government that recently completed three years in office.

Excise and revenue minister M.P. Renukacharya has also got celebrated director Rajendra Singh Babu to accept the assignment of directing the full-length feature film. The cast will be decided in due course, the minister said.

Renukacharya, for long an adversary of the chief minister, led the October rebellion last year when 11 party legislators sought to unseat Yeddyurappa. But he ditched the rebels before they, along with five Independent MLAs, got suspended under the anti-defection law.

The minister recently created ripples with his comments equating Yeddyurappa with the 12th century social reformer Basavanna. Like the chief minister and most of his supporters, Renukacharya belongs to the Lingayat community that draws inspiration from the teachings of Basavanna.

“I admire the chief minister and his fighting spirit in coming up from a very ordinary family to head the state government,” the minister said, explaining the reason for making the film.

He isn’t bothered about the corruption charges Yeddyurappa and some of his family members face in a city court. “I just want to show the people the humble background of our chief minister,” Renukacharya, who is waiting for Yeddyurappa’s consent for the project, said.

Sources said the shooting was likely to begin in three to four months once the chief minister gives the go-ahead.

Director Babu, who was awarded the Rajat Kamal for his film Bandhana in 1985, is working on the cast and the crew. He was not available for comment.

Industry sources said the film would be shot in locales in the chief minister’s native district Shimoga, some 270km north of Bangalore.

Unlike neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka does not have a tradition of electing movie stars to top political offices. But the state’s late chief minister, Ramakrishna Hegde, did the reverse when he acted in two successful feature films, Marana Mrudunga (Drums of Death) and Prajashakti (People’s Power) back in the early 1990s.